


I Will Follow You

by HushedSong



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But it takes a while, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Age II Spoilers, F/M, Fenris and Hawke have issues, Fenris' past with Danarius is briefly referenced, Hawke doesn't always make the best choices, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, POV Fenris (Dragon Age), Some hurt/comfort, Swearing, like several years, they work them out eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:17:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HushedSong/pseuds/HushedSong
Summary: The first time Fenris heard Gemma Hawke sing it was joyous and wild and intoxicating and he couldn't look away--no matter how much he knew he should. It would be seven years before he heard her sing again.





	1. Act One

The first time Fenris heard Gemma Hawke sing was in the Hanged Man in 9:31 Dragon. He wasn’t even going to go at first. He preferred to drink alone, where it was quiet and there was no one around to make a fuss if he threw things. But Varric had been pestering him to come to the tavern for weeks, and he figured he could make a decent amount of coin from Anders and Aveline in Wicked Grace, provided he could keep Isabela from joining in. As for why he chose  _ that _ night in particular to go, well, it certainly had nothing at all to do with Gemma. He knew she performed for tips some nights, sure, she took whatever odd job she could get her hands on, but there was no way he could have known she was performing  _ that _ night. It wasn’t like he had heard Varric mention it loudly to Isabela, and Fenris most certainly hadn’t seen the dwarf wink and smirk at him.

He was going for the cards. That was it.

By the time Fenris arrived at the tavern, most of its patrons were already a few rounds in, judging from the smell and the shouting, and all their eyes were on Gemma. She looked different out of her armor, more collarbone and cleavage and wild hair and, well...just  _ more _ . She was playing an instrument that wasn’t quite a lute, bigger and with fewer strings, and with a sound that filled the room instead of trilling above it. When he had learned that she sang, he was expecting something like the music of the few traveling minstrels he’d heard--high, melodic, unlikely to offend, and easy to tune out. Gemma’s voice was nothing like that, it was full and throaty, with a slight rasp, and like its owner it demanded attention from an audience that happily obliged.

He stared, as if under a spell, listening to her voice and watching the way she seemed to play with her entire body, hips swaying and hair swinging with every strum. She caught him staring (because of course she did, she always did), and acknowledged him with a wink as she strummed the song’s last chord.

Broken from his daze, Fenris pushed his way through the drunkenly cheering crowd to Varric’s usual table, squeezing himself into a seat between Merrill and Isabela. 

“Oh, Fenris! You made it! Gemma will be so pleased!” Merrill chirped while still clapping enthusiastically.

Isabela leaned over, her breath warm on his ear. “I bet if you ask nicely, she’ll show you exactly how pleased.” 

Fenris stared straight forward, refusing to encourage her, and doing his best to keep his ear from twitching. He also pretended not to notice Anders’ scowl, Bethany’s knowing smile, or when Aveline passed Varric a few sovereigns with a grimace. 

Gemma, for her part, didn’t so much as glance his way as she passed around a worn old cap for patrons to drop spare coppers, smiling charmingly at everyone but him. Not that he noticed.

Or cared.

“Thank you all for coming!” she told the tavern with a smile, sea green eyes blazing, fully confident that anyone who had come for drink or company or cards was now there for her. The drunken cheers indicated she wasn’t wrong. “My friend has at last graced us with his presence--” She finally looked at Fenris with a dismissive gesture and a wicked grin. “So the real show can start!”

Fenris glared at a spot on the ceiling, determined to ignore the whole tavern as their attention momentarily turned to him, the general din punctuated by Varric and Isabela’s laughter.

After only a beat Gemma took pity on him (or more likely was ready to be the center of attention again), and called all eyes back to her by brandishing her instrument dramatically towards the table where her friends were sitting. “Tonight you all get the rare pleasure of hearing the real talent of the family perform. Meet my gorgeous, talented sister who blows me straight out of the water--Bethany!”

Bethany’s face was beet red as she scurried to her sister, and Fenris heard her muttering as she passed him “Really, Gem, was that necessary?”

Gemma only smiled at her little sister, ruffling her hair fondly as she handed over the instrument. 

Gemma’s smile was different with her sister, Fenris had noticed. With everyone else, him included (perhaps him especially), her smile had a bit of an edge to it, a single raised brow, a spark in her eye. Her smiles said she had something up her sleeve, that she knew something he didn’t, that the whole world was a grand trick she was in on while everyone else was two steps behind. Sometimes, her smiles could almost make him believe that was true.

But with Bethany, her smiles were soft and glowing and proud; they didn’t hide a thing. Her love for her sister was the only thing about Gemma that could be taken at face value.

Fenris didn’t understand it. It was absurd. She loved Bethany, it was as plain as the chains around the city, but refused even the suggestion of sending her to the Circle. There were only three ways apostasy could end: possession, death by templars, or joining the Circle. Of course the separation would be painful, but wasn’t the third option infinitely  _ less _ painful than the first two? How could Gemma love Bethany as she did, and at the same time be so utterly selfish? 

That was how he knew her smiles were a lie. To herself, and everyone else. She wasn’t two steps ahead, she was hopelessly behind, wilfully ignorant of the way the world worked, and it was going to get people hurt, Fenris just knew it. Part of him hated her for that, for how carefree and confident she was, how she refused to see the consequences her actions would have. 

Another, smaller, more buried part of himself wondered if anyone could ever smile at him the way Gemma smiled at her sister.

He did not come there for her. He came for the cards. And the alcohol.

Bethany didn’t blow Gemma out of the water, not even close, but her voice was sweet and clear, and she played the lute-like instrument (a few songs in he heard Varric call it a “guitar”) with more skill than her sister, her dainty fingers plucking out actual melodies where Gemma had beat out rough chords. 

It was when they sang together that the whole tavern went quiet, even the rowdiest drunks swaying to the music, slogging down more ale and gazing at the sisters as though they held all the secrets of Thedas.

Sometimes, even when they stood next to each other, it was difficult to tell Gemma and Bethany were sisters. They looked nothing alike; Bethany was porcelain where Gemma was brass, willowy where Gemma was solid. Bethany’s eyes were dark brown, almost black, while Gemma’s were a startlingly bright sea green. Gemma seized attention with sometimes surprising ease while Bethany usually tried her best to blend into the shadows. 

But other times, like now, they seemed not only related but connected. They moved from song to song, verse to verse, in perfect sync, weaving soaring melodies without the need of any sort of signal, or at least any Fenris could see. He saw them like this in battle sometimes, Bethany throwing a barrier over Gemma before she exposed her flank, Gemma charging an opening before Bethany had even sent the fireball to create it. He supposed it must have been the kind of connection that could only be forged by years, by having pasts inexorably knit by shared blood. 

The closest thing he’d ever had to a connection like that was with Danarius. Which wasn’t close, really. Not at all.

He couldn’t have guessed how many hours had passed by the time they stopped singing, passing the cap around again now that purse strings were looser with drink and admiration. He found that Varric, Anders, Isabela, and Aveline had gotten a few rounds into a game of Wicked Grace without him noticing (perhaps for the better judging by the pile of gold in front of Isabela). They were all smirking at him, he knew it, but he ignored them and watched her, moving through the crowd, smiling that sharp smile, eyes like beacons. He knew she would catch him staring, he knew she was trouble, he knew her arrogance would get her and everyone around her burned.

And still he couldn’t look away.

* * *

 

He wasn’t sure precisely when they all stopped calling her Gemma and started calling her Hawke. Maybe Varric started it, or maybe Hawke herself did, but at some point in the days between their return from the Deep Roads and Bethany’s funeral she became Hawke. During the ceremony, her mother called her Gemma and it sounded like a stranger’s name. 

Gemma was the girl whose smile held secrets, whose voice could warm a room, who bested the tragedies around her by flagrantly ignoring them. Hawke buried Gemma in the Deep Roads with Bethany.

She sang at the funeral. It was one of the songs Bethany had sung that night in the Hanged Man. From Bethany, it had been melancholy and hopeful. From Hawke, well, it did as good a job of ripping a heart out as Fenris' lyrium markings. 

Beside him, Merrill sobbed unabashedly, and he knew if he dared look around to the others in the Chantry there would be tears running down their faces too. Hawke could have that effect on people if she wanted. 

His eyes stayed dry, thanks to his fingernails carving into his palms until they drew blood. She couldn’t see him cry, she didn’t need that from him. Honestly, if he was giving Hawke what she needed he wouldn’t have come. But he owed Leandra that much. He owed Bethany that much. 

He had asked Hawke, the day they were to set out, why she would risk bringing Bethany to the Deep Roads. Bring Merrill, bring Isabela, bring Aveline, bring the damned  _ abomination _ . As much as Anders made clear his distaste of the Deep Roads, Fenris knew he would come if Hawke asked. Any of them would follow if Hawke asked.

She had turned to him, eyes flashing, no sharp smile, no smile of any sort. He expected her to say it was none of his damned business, but instead, “In the Deep Roads, I’ll be there to protect her. If she’s here and I’m down there and the templars come, they’ll make her Tranquil and there will be nothing I can do to stop it.”

“And if she dies down there, Gemma? Or worse, becomes possessed? Will you have  _ protected _ her then?”

He had expected her to hit him. He was certain she almost had. Instead, she glared at him, and though they were the same height she somehow seemed taller than the Arishok. “Remember, Fenris,  _ you’re _ the one who owes  _ me _ . So you worry about killing darkspawn, I’ll worry about my sister, and if I want any more of your  _ advice _ I’ll fucking ask.”

Whatever Hawke thought of him, Fenris didn’t relish being right. He never did, not any of it, though he knew his temper sometimes made it seem otherwise. He just wanted her to  _ see _ , to see that it wasn’t a coincidence that things all went to the Void when she put her trust in mages. Of course he knew that all mages weren’t inherently bad people, he wasn’t an idiot, but that was all the more reason for the Circle. Even the most well intentioned mages got themselves and the people around them hurt, just by virtue of what they were. It wasn’t fair, of course not, but that’s how the world  _ worked _ . Hawke wasn’t saving anyone by refusing to see it, she was just making things worse.

Hawke played her guitar as she sang, trying to pluck the strings like Bethany had, but Hawke had never been one for finesse. The notes came off angry. 

He and Varric had stood by, helpless, when Bethany collapsed. They watched as Hawke held her, murmuring softly, calling her “Bethy,” before slipping a dagger gently through her back. Listened to Hawke scream after she closed her sister’s eyes.

Hawke didn’t cry until she finished the song, and she held her head high as though in defiance of the tears streaking down her face.

Varric had seemed unable to move, so it was Fenris who had to kneel down next to her, shake her shoulders, grab her chin and make her look at him. “Gemma, the darkspawn will hear. Gemma, you need to stop. Gemma!”

She had pushed him away, shouted, “Are you happy now? Are you happy you were right? Happy the world has one less mage now and it’s my fault?”

He should have said something. Should have comforted her, said he was sorry, said it wasn’t her fault, done any of those things a person who actually knew how to have normal, healthy relationships with other people would have done. But he didn’t know how to lie to her, and, if he was being honest, he didn’t want to, not really. So he denied the only part of what she had said that he could.

“It doesn’t make me happy.”

After Hawke finished singing, she sat down by her mother while the Revered Mother spoke. Fenris didn’t hear a word of it.

All he could think of was the look on Hawke’s face when he had said those words. Not anger, but acceptance, and then grief breaking over her like she was waiting for him to confirm what she already knew. She had killed the person she loved most, maybe the only person she loved at all.

Fenris had been the one to get her to stop screaming, but it was Varric who got her moving again, with one of his huge hands on her shoulder and a “C’mon, Hawke,” his voice even gruffer than usual. 

There was no body for the pyre. All of them had been too weak from hunger to carry it the rest of the way out of the Deep Roads, so they had piled stones on top of it in a cairn and left it there. For the funeral they burned straw wrapped in cloth. Before anyone could stop her Hawke threw the guitar into the blaze. Leandra let out a small cry but said nothing.

Fenris left before the flames split open the cloth to reveal no one there.


	2. Act 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some content that is NSFW.

Isabela was leaving the Hanged Man as Fenris entered, something that struck him as odd because it was usually the other way around. That wasn’t true, actually. Isabela was usually in the Hanged Man before _and_ after Fenris left.

“Don’t even try talking to her,” she said as she stormed past him. “She doesn’t care about apologies, she just wants to be righteous.”

He almost turned around and left, but he knew being alone with his thoughts after what had happened would be worse than whatever Hawke could say.

The tavern was relatively empty, just a few Fereldans nursing beers at the bar, the strange talkative man who never seemed to leave, and Hawke and Varric sitting at the usual table. Hawke didn’t see Fenris at first, as she was busy waving to a barmaid to bring her more drink. Varric saw Fenris before Hawke did, and immediately widened his eyes and shook his head, waving at him to leave.

Before Fenris could decide whether or not to obey, Hawke’s eyes found his. She stopped waving to the poor barmaid and smiled at him.

Hawke’s smiles had always had an edge to them, but in the years since Bethany’s death they had grown sharper, and the one she aimed at him now stung like a dagger’s blade. “Fenris! I’d thought you’d be long gone by now, what with having the power of magister.” She tipped her head back and drank from her nearly empty cup, letting the last few drops of ale slither into her mouth, before slamming it back onto the table loud enough that heads turned. “What does a girl need to do to get a refill around here?” she snapped at the barkeep across the room. When she turned back to Fenris her voice was sickly sweet and her smile slid between his ribs. “Or hasn’t that arrived by post yet?”

Varric shot him a look that said _she’s your problem now_ , before leaving, probably to slip the barkeep a few silvers to cut Hawke off.

Fenris sat down beside her slowly, as careful not to startle her as he would be with a wild mabari. “I came to apologize for what happened.”

She leaned back, still smiling, deliberately folding her arms across her chest. Fenris did his best to keep his eyes on hers. “Apologize for what? For trying to kill me at the behest of a demon, or for being the biggest fucking hypocrite I’ve ever laid eyes on?”

Fenris clenched his teeth and his fists, now fixing his eyes on the stained, scratched table. She was expecting him to rise to the bait, as he usually did. But this time was different. This time, she was actually right. He had fallen prey to his own weakness, and it had almost hurt her, and whatever she had to say was the least of what he deserved.

“I mean, if you’re going to sell me out, you could at least make it worth it. The power of a magister? I mean really, Fenris, the vendors in Lowtown could have told you that was a bad deal, and I’ve sold them empty bottles and broken lockpicks.” He could feel her eyes on him, daring him to look up, to argue with her. She leaned back further in her chair, propping her boots on the table in the precise spot at which he had been staring. He turned his eyes to a spot on the wall just above her head instead. “Say what you want about Anders and Merrill--and you do, by the way, you always say whatever the fuck you want--but at least when they make deals with demons they actually get something out of it.”

Fenris took a deep breath in through his nose, willing himself not to say anything. No matter how badly he wanted to tell her that his mistake didn’t excuse the recklessness of others, that those two had wilfully entered bargains with demons while he had been coerced, that it had been her who put him in that position in the first place--no, he needed to stay calm. Let her run out of steam, then maybe she would actually be willing to hear him.

“Or maybe you _did_ get something out of it.” Hawke’s voice was growing louder, and she was no longer smiling. “Maybe what you wanted wasn’t a way to get at Danarius, but a way to get at _me_. Maybe hurting me with your words wasn’t enough any more. Maybe you decided the real problem in this city isn’t the mages running loose, but the woman who keeps helping them.” She swung her feet off the table, and the legs of her chair slammed back to the ground, startling Fenris enough that he looked at her. He had seen Hawke’s fury before, with slavers and corrupt templars and on occasion with her uncle, but this was different. She wasn’t in control this time, she wasn’t letting her anger loose as a calculated decision, it was spilling over her, making her face red and her hands shake. “Maybe part of you thinks this place would be better off without me and you just saw your opportunity.”

“You’re wrong,” he said before he could think.

“Am I?” she shouted, standing up. “Because I couldn’t help but notice how little convincing you needed to try to kill me!”

He stood up too, but he had barely opened his mouth when she advanced on him, still shouting.

“What? Have nothing to say now you don’t have the excuse of a demon to absolve you? Thought you’d be less guilty if you did it while you dreamt?” Fenris involuntarily took a step back, then another, but she continued to advance. “Well, guess what, Fenris, murder in the Fade is still murder! Tranquil is just a nicer way of saying dead! So you can take your apology and shove it up your--”

Fenris’ back hit the bar. Hawke reached out to shove him, but Fenris caught her wrists before she could, his markings flaring.

“Then why did you take me there?” he roared. “If you trust me so little, why did you take me into that demons’ nest? That’s a place for mages, we shouldn’t have been there!”

That knife-like smile returned, and she flashed it at him triumphantly, as though him shouting at her had been what she wanted all along. “Then why come at all? Why not just say you didn’t want to go?”

He let out a breath, some of his anger draining as he held her gaze and noticed that at some point between her standing up and him grabbing her wrists, a tear had tracked its way down her cheek.

“You really don’t know?” he murmured. Another thing he hadn’t noticed earlier is how close they were standing. She still had him backed against the bar and his fingers still encircled her wrists.

She raised a single eyebrow, twisting the knife. “Enlighten me.”

He tried to search her eyes, eyes like the sea, but she was back in control, that lone tear track the only evidence anything had ever broken. Was there any way she didn’t know the effect she had? “Because you asked, Hawke,” he replied as her smile slipped. “I stand by your side, even if we don’t always see eye to eye, because you ask. All of us do.”

Her smile was gone now. She stepped back, pulling herself free of his hands and walking around to the other side of the bar. At some point in their fight, everyone had cleared out of the room, including the barkeep. Varric must have slipped him more coin than Fenris thought. He heard bottles clinking as she rummaged through the shelves behind the bar.

She emerged with two bottles, one vodka and one wine, uncorked both and shoved the wine at him. “This is what you drink, right?”

He accepted the bottle and took a swig. Not nearly the quality of the stuff Danarius had in his cellar, but it was strong. He sat down on a stool across from her. “Close enough.”

She took a long pull from the vodka, grimacing as she swallowed. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you follow me?” She stared into her bottle as she spoke, as though it was the one who had the answers. “And don’t say it’s because I ask.”

Fenris took a while to sift his thoughts into an answer, during which time they both continued to drink. “There are very few things in the world I am sure of. But you have this...this certainty. You step forward when no one else will. You make it easy for people to believe in you, Hawke.” There was something else he wanted to say, but he couldn’t find the words. Maybe they didn’t exist. Or maybe he just wasn’t ready yet. He started to take another gulp of wine, but thought better of it and set the bottle back on the bar. “Or perhaps I’m just the kind of person who needs someone to follow,” he said instead.

Hawke closed her eyes for a moment, knuckles white on the neck of the bottle.

A beat of silence passed. “Hawke?”

“I can’t stop thinking about what you told me about the Fog Warriors.” She said it softly, like a confession.

Fenris simultaneously felt his stomach sink and the wine rise back up his throat. He had known this was a possibility when he told her. That she wouldn’t be able to look at him the same way, without remembering what he’d done. He’d felt relieved that night, when she hadn’t been disgusted or horrified, when she’d even called him brave for surviving what he had. He should have known that relief would be short-lived. He should have known there were some things he couldn’t be forgiven for. Her accusations of him secretly wanting what the demon had tried to make him do suddenly made much more sense. “I…” He swallowed the rising bile and tried again. He couldn’t look at her. “I would never willingly betray you, Hawke. But if you would rather I...if you want me to leave, I understand.”

“No--no, Fenris. Fenris, look at me.” Fenris startled as her hand seized his chin and pulled his face up to look at her. She looked stricken. “That’s not what I meant.” He felt her hand shake against him. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” He didn’t dare move while she still held his face.

“I…” Her eyes seemed to search his, looking for something he wasn’t sure she would find. Her thumb ran across his jaw once, softly, before her hand dropped. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Of course.”

She groaned, turning her whole body away from him and pacing out from behind the bar, vodka forgotten. Perhaps for the best, judging by her unsteady steps. “Don’t do that, don’t promise me before you even know what I’m asking you!”

“Hawke--” he started, but stopped when she turned to glare at him. He sighed and gestured for her to continue.

She set her jaw in a way he’d seen her do when she was steeling herself for something, like jumping into a battle or talking with Cullen. She took a few more wobbly steps, collapsing onto a stool beside him. “If I make a bad call, or if I ask--if I ask you to do something you truly don't want to do…” She swallowed once, then looked him in the eye. “Then I want you to promise you won’t follow me.”

Suddenly he understood why she had mentioned the Fog Warriors. He almost laughed. “Hawke, I follow you because I want to, not because I’m forced to.”

She didn’t look reassured. “Promise me, Fenris.”

“Hawke--”

“Please, Fenris.”

“I promise.” How could he not when she asked him?

* * *

 He hadn’t left Danarius’ mansion since he walked out on Hawke. That was three days ago, he thought. Very little sunlight made its way into the mansion, and he’d had quite a lot to drink since then, so it was difficult to tell.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the taste of her. Or how she felt. Or how she had looked in the firelight or--he couldn’t stop thinking about _her._  Her lips crushing against his, the muscles moving under her skin, scent of leather and rosemary, the feel of being inside her--

Stop. Stop thinking about that, it was too much, just too much for him. Because when he remembered being with her that night, he remembered the gaping emptiness in his memory, the feeling of something being there, faces and names and connections he couldn’t call forth no matter how he tried.

But worse than that was what he _did_ remember, what he couldn’t push out of his mind, couldn’t forget, even after years--another’s hands knotted in his hair, another’s taste on his tongue, stench of ozone and lavender oil--

He needed to stop thinking about that, too.

Why did his mind wrap all these things together? Why could he have no happiness without all his pain being dredged up, shaken from the corners in which he’d hidden it?

He needed to stop asking. He already knew. He already knew he didn’t deserve to be with her, but why couldn’t he have realized that before he had to hurt her? It wasn’t like he hadn’t had warning. The thinly veiled flirting, badly disguised desire--it had been there for years. Plenty of time for Fenris to banish it from his mind, promise himself that it could never be, protect Hawke’s heart by shutting his away. That’s what he should have done, stopped it before it started, why hadn’t he?

Because he hadn’t wanted to. He still didn’t want to. If he could just get these thoughts out of his head--

A knocking at the door. Probably Varric again, he kept coming around, telling Fenris to stop moping, then leaving food outside the door. Or maybe Isabela. Since the incident in the Fade she’d been going on about running away together on a stolen ship or some such nonsense. He didn’t have the energy to deal with either of them right now.

The knocking continued. Incessantly. More like pounding than knocking, really. He burrowed further into his bed, burying himself under pillows. He should leave Kirkwall. They wouldn’t leave him alone while he stayed.

The pounding continued.

With a snarl, he hauled himself into a standing position and stalked to the front door. If this was Isabela trying to drag him along on one of her flights of fancy he would choke her with her own bandana.

The pounding didn’t stop until he yanked open the door, roaring “What?” before he realized who was there.

Hawke. Of course it was Hawke.

Fenris was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt and that his hair was probably sticking up in all directions. An absurd, useless thought, one he shouldn’t be having, just like he shouldn’t be thinking of how she had looked when she had woken, naked skin dewey in the firelight, hair ruffled by sleep, smile not yet sharpened.

“Hawke,” he said, voice scraped and empty.

She was dressed in her leathers, still spattered with blood in some places, and her hair was damp. Just returned from the Storm Coast, then. He shouldn’t be feeling a pang when he thought about her asking Anders or Sebastian to come instead of him. He also shouldn’t be noticing the bags under her eyes and wondering--presumptuously--if he had something to do with that. She didn’t respond when he said her name, she was staring at something. He followed her gaze and cursed himself.

That night, in the too-brief period of time between when they had been arguing about Hadriana and when everything went to the Void, that precious bit in the middle when everything had been _just right_ , Hawke had tied a red sash around his wrist. They had finally made it up the stairs to her room, and she had been trying to take off his armor and being laughably bad at it, fumbling with the clasps and swearing between kisses.

“Fenris,” she had said, trying to remove one of his gauntlets and failing miserably, probably because she was too busy kissing along his jawline to look at what she was doing, “why do you wear armor that’s designed so idiotically?”

“I think you’re proving more about yourself than the quality of my armor,” he had murmured into her hair (Was it something she washed it with that made it smell so nice, or was that just her?), the hand not held hostage by her fumblings holding her to him at the waist and moving lower, trying to pull her to the bed.

“It’s too pointy.” She had paused in her complaints to run her tongue along one of the lyrium lines on his neck (Maker, had she known how that sent sparks over his whole body?), rolling her hips into his in a way that had made him wish that she would hurry up with the blasted gauntlet and move on to his trousers. “And gloomy. Did you know I’ve never seen you wear anything that wasn’t black?”

“Hawke,” he had groaned (Had his voice always been that rough? Had she done that to him?), trying again, unsucessfully, to pull her to the bed.

She had pulled her face away enough for him to see her grin, and was suddenly very adept at removing the gauntlet (She’d been teasing him that whole time, hadn’t she?) as she released its clasps with one hand and tossed it across the room. “You know, I can fix that.”

He didn’t quite remember her tying the red sash around his wrist, because he had been too distracted by its removal making her robe fall open. He did remember her body (he couldn’t forget), how soft and warm her skin was (When did this mansion become so freezing?), how those sea green eyes (that he still saw in his dreams) roamed over his body once they had finally removed the rest of his armor, how she had run out of clever things to say (things had been so quiet since he left her) once he claimed her mouth with his.

In the morning, he had been so distressed he’d put his armor on over the sash without thinking, and left with it still wrapped around his wrist. When he’d returned to Danarius' mansion and discovered what he’d stolen, he didn’t have the will to remove it. It smelled like leather and rosemary.

Hawke seemed to shake herself, tearing her gaze from his wrist and meeting his eyes in a way that made him want to throw up. If she asked him to come back, he didn’t think he could say no.

“My mother’s missing,” she said. “Someone left her white lilies.”

He dressed quickly in his armor, hiding the sash under his gauntlet. When he opened the door a second time, he fell into step behind her without a word. He couldn’t be at her side, not the way either of them wanted him to be. But he could follow her. He could do that much.

So he followed her through the night, along blood trails and through hoards of summoned demons, covered her as she charged the blood mage responsible and cut his head clean off, stood guard as she witnessed her mother’s last words.

Days later, when Sebastian said prayers over Leandra’s body before committing it to the pyre, Hawke, without looking at him, reached out and took Fenris' hand. He held hers tightly, because she needed him to, even as it cut his heart deeper than her smile ever had.

* * *

 He had killed Hawke. She never would have fought the Arishok one on one if he hadn’t suggested it. She never would have been run through by that great sword, or been held aloft like some sick trophy, or opened her mouth in a silent scream only to have blood pour out. That she was still breathing was a miracle, but how could she survive that, how could anyone? And it was his fault, all of it.

He paced in front of her bedroom door. His feet had started to wear off the polish on the wood, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t sit still, not while she--

He should have ripped out the Arishok’s heart the moment they stepped into the throne room. Who cared if some nobles got killed, as long as Hawke was alive?

Orana almost ran into him as she rushed into Hawke’s room, carrying a bucket of water in each hand, leaning to one side to accommodate a stack of towels thrown over one shoulder. Before the thought that he should open the door for her registered, she’d used her elbow to press down the latch and push open the door, kicking it closed as soon as she was through.

“I gave her a job, Fenris,” Hawke had snapped at him when he’d accused her of being in the market for a slave. “You really think that little of me?”

That expression of hurt and betrayal trying to hide behind anger filled his mind as he halted his pacing and collapsed into a sitting position beside Hawke’s closed door. He felt so useless. Anders had been in there for hours, and Orana had been running in and out, bringing water and bandages and lyrium. Fenris tried not to think about the buckets she carried when she left, the sight of the dark red water twisting the knot in his stomach tighter each time he saw it.

Fenris never thought he would be so grateful for the existence of a mage, let alone an abomination, but the only reason Hawke was still holding on was Anders’ healing magic. But even that could only last for so long.

Orana had made two more trips in and out of the room and the hallway had grown darker by the time Varric came up the stairs, a bowl of stew in each hand. “Daisy cooks when she’s nervous, did you know that?” Varric settled himself on the floor beside Fenris. “It works well because when Choir Boy's nervous, he eats.” He held one of the bowls out to Fenris.

As if he could keep anything down.

Varric eventually set the bowl down in between them and began to eat from the other. “You know she’s going to be pissed if she wakes up and finds out you’ve starved yourself worrying about her.”

“If she wakes up she can be as pissed at me as she wants.”

Varric chuckles, scooping up another spoonful. “She’s Hawke. She’ll wake up soon enough and the first words out of her mouth are going to be a joke about--oh, I don’t know--getting the Arishok to see her point, or something stupid like that.”

“This isn’t one of your stories, Varric,” Fenris growled. “The world doesn’t let people live just because they’re important to the plot.”

Varric chuckled again, infuriatingly, still eating that blasted stew. “If I put any of this in one of my books, Broody, it’d be a flop. Too unbelievable.” He waved the spoon as he talked and Fenris was trying very hard not to snatch it away and throw it against the opposite wall. “I mean, she takes on a qunari twice her size, the Arishok himself no less. He’s wielding a great sword _and_ a battle axe, because the horns weren’t overcompensating enough. She sticks him with both her short swords and that only seems to make him angrier. She gets--” Varric cut off, swallowing thickly, though he’d already finished the soup and had set the bowl aside. “She gets literally _skewered_ , this fucker is _smiling_ , because he’s won, everyone thinks he’s won. I mean, she’s impaled on a sword as tall as she is. She’s dead. She’s finished.”

Fenris clenched his fists, curling in on himself. He didn’t want to hear this. It was already all he could see when he closed his eyes.

“And she--” Varric laughed again, though Fenris couldn’t hear any amusement behind it. “She waits until _she’s slid down the sword_ so she can get _a better shot_ before throwing the dagger she’s had up her sleeve _the whole time_ straight through the Arishok’s eye.” The bitter laughter faded and Varric gave a shaky sigh. “I mean, c’mon. Who would buy that?”

“She didn’t wait so she could get a better shot, she was throwing up blood. She couldn’t breathe.” Fenris squeezed his eyes shut, seeing Hawke’s smile in the heartbeat between when her dagger had hit home and when the Arishok collapsed, taking her with him. Her teeth were blood red. “You talk about her like she’s a god. Invincible.”

“Maybe,” said Varric, picking up both bowls as he stood. “But I’m not the only one. _I_ didn’t volunteer her for single combat with the bloody Arishok.”

Hours passed after Varric left. At some point Fenris fell asleep. He woke with a start after dreaming about Hawke with stitches encircling her neck, her teeth bloody and her hands bound with strips of scarlet cloth. He started pacing again.

Sunlight had just begun to creep in through the windows when the door to Hawke’s room opened. Anders had bags under his eyes so dark it looked as though he’d lost a fist fight. There was blood under his fingernails.

“Is she--”

“She’s sleeping,” said Anders. “I’ve done what I can for now. Come get me if she wakes. I need to…” He trailed off as he stumbled towards the guest bedroom, barely holding himself upright.

Fenris rushed past him into Hawke’s room, moving to her bedside in an instant.

She was breathing. Her chest rose and fell. Too slowly and too shakily, but she was breathing. Her stomach was encased in bandages. Fang, Hawke’s blind old mabari, was curled up at the foot of her bed, whining softly.

Orana stood next to the head of the bed, using a damp cloth to clean Hawke’s face.

“I can do that,” said Fenris. “You should get some rest.”

Orana paused, looking for a moment like she was going to refuse, before passing him the cloth and bowing.

Fenris took her place at the head of the bed as Orana retreated. A moment passed, and he thought she had left when he heard her voice coming from the door.

“Please take care of Mistress Hawke.” Orana looked far more suprprised by her own daring than Fenris. “She’s--she’s a good person.” She disappeared before Fenris could respond.

An hour passed. Fenris pulled a chair to Hawke’s bedside.

Two hours passed. Varric brought him something to eat. Said there was still no sign of Isabela. Fenris gave the food to Fang once the dwarf left.

Four hours passed. Aveline stopped by. Said order was being restored to Kirkwall slowly but surely. Meredith wanted to speak to Hawke once she was awake. Fenris said Meredith could stuff it. Aveline nodded once and sat on the edge of the bed, scratching Fang’s ears.

An hour passed. Aveline had left. Orana came back with fresh water.

Two hours passed. Anders was awake again. He changed Hawke’s bandages. Fenris had to turn away and his ears warmed in shame.

Two hours passed. If Isabela ever set foot in the city again, he would run her through himself. Hawke wouldn’t like that, he thought. He buried his face in his hands.

Three hours passed. Fenris vowed to the Maker he would never do anything to hurt Hawke ever again if she would just wake up.

An hour passed.

Another hour passed.

Another hour passed.

Fenris cried when Hawke opened her eyes. She smiled at him, the spaces between her teeth still shadowed in red. “That fight sure took a lot out of me, huh?”


	3. Act 3

Fenris swung his greatsword through the last assassin with perhaps a bit too much vigor, blood coating the blade and splattering his armor.

He didn’t know why Hawke had dragged them out here. She had always been a bleeding heart, but helping a former Antivan Crow just because he asked nicely? Sure, he said he’d traveled with the Hero of Ferelden, but pointy ears and a ridiculous accent didn’t mean he was telling the truth.

Fenris wiped his blade clean while he watched Hawke out of the corner of his eye. She was breathing hard and her armor was more blood spattered than his, but she didn’t seem injured. Fenris let out a long, slow breath. If she were wounded helping that smug Antivan, then he would--

No. That wasn’t his place.

Fenris moved to stand behind Hawke as the assassin in question picked over the battlefield, checking that each of their former opponents was truly dead. The Antivan chatted amiably as he did so, oblivious to the death around him. Why would Hawke trust someone like that?

With a grumble, Fenris sheathed his sword. Hawke glanced at him but otherwise didn’t comment.

He knew his hatred of the assassin was partially to do with the flirting. Fenris wasn’t completely without self awareness. The Antivan didn’t seem even _capable_ of speaking without some sort of double entendre, but that wasn’t the real problem.

Hawke was flirting _back_.

There had always been plenty of men (and a fair amount of women) interested in Hawke, and that number had only increased since she’d been declared Champion. But Hawke never flirted _back_. Well, she had, but not since that--since three years ago. He shouldn’t care. He hadn’t the right to.

He didn’t notice he was rubbing his wrist until Merrill tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you all right, Fenris? Did you sprain something?”

He shook his head, not looking at Hawke as he forced his hands to his sides, letting them clench into fists.

It was difficult to focus as the assassin talked to Hawke, thanking her, apologizing for the paltry sum he was paying her, good-natured and slimy. Fenris felt the lyrium in his skin prickle, urging him to give in to his anger. His stupid, pointless anger that she didn’t deserve. _He_ had been the one to walk out on _her._

He’d hoped that maybe, with Danarius finally dead, things would be different. That the last of his chains being broken would turn him into the kind of man who deserved her. The kind of man who walked at her side instead of trailing behind. But no sense of clarity had come with his former master’s death, no newfound sense of freedom and purpose like he’d expected. Looking at Hawke now he felt more lost than ever.

The assassin sheathed his daggers with a flourish, eyes never leaving Hawke. “It is time for me to move on. Unless, you care to get to know each other better, Champion?”

“That depends. How much do you wish to test that luck of yours?”

Fenris knew that he shouldn’t have said that the moment the words left his mouth. Merrill gasped, Varric tried to cover a snort, the assassin made a smooth apology as he retreated, disappearing with surprising speed down the road, but Fenris had his eyes on Hawke. She turned toward him slowly, body language very deliberately neutral except for a single raised eyebrow and the flat line of her mouth.

He knew he shouldn’t have said that. He knew he should apologize.

He couldn't bring himself to.

“C’mon, Daisy, it’s time to head back.”

“But, but Hawke is--”

“Shh, they’ll catch up.”

He heard their footsteps growing fainter, but Hawke’s eyes still bored into his, so he didn’t look away.

“Care to tell me what that was?” she asked finally, voice deceptively mild.

“He could have been dangerous.” It was a lie and they both knew it.

A silence stretched between them, heavy and painful, and Fenris felt as though the sea green of her eyes was filling up his whole world, swallowing him. He had sworn he wouldn’t hurt her. He realized he’d made a mistake leaving her, realized it ages ago, well before she had helped him face Danarius. But any wound he’d given her when he left had healed, and that wasn’t worth reopening for what _he_ wanted. It wasn’t his place. He would be what she needed, he would follow her, and he refused to ask for anything in return.

She was the one who finally broke the silence. “I’m not stupid, Fenris.”

“I didn’t mean to--”

She closed the distance between them faster than he could draw in a breath, seizing his wrist, removing his gauntlet with the same unexpected ease she had three years ago. He felt his ears warm at the sight of the red sash still around his wrist, its edges now frayed, but the red still bright as blood. How long had she known? When had she realized that he still wore it, always hidden?

She shoved the gauntlet at him before storming off towards Kirkwall.

“Hawke!”

Without looking at him, she halted and said, “I’m not talking about this while we’re both exhausted and covered in blood.” She let out a long, shuddering breath. “But we _are_ going to talk about it.”

Fenris watched her go until her form faded from view.

Later that night, she arrived while he was pacing in front of his fireplace. He’d left the door open for her, but as the hours had ticked by he’d become more and more convinced that she’d decided not to come. That they would go back to ignoring whatever was between them, and he would be glad for it. Should be glad for it.

Why couldn’t he walk away from her? Why was he still up, hours after any sensible person was in bed, not even drunk, waiting for her?

He knew why when he saw her, knocking softly on the door frame, expression wary.

She was out of her leathers, dressed in a thin cotton shirt and trousers. The laces at the neck of the shirt weren’t done, exposing her collar bones and a hint of the curves of her breasts.

“ _Festis bei umo canavarum,_ ” he muttered.

“I thought this week was my turn to be angry for no particular reason,” she quipped as she settled herself into a chair by the fire.

“It means ‘you will be the death of me.’”

She raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t react.

Making a frustrated noise, he ran a hand through his hair. How could he make her understand? “Six years ago I decided to stay with you, in part because I owed you. But I also thought you could help me.” That sounded ungrateful, he didn’t mean to sound like that. He quickly added, “And you did. Hadriana is dead. Danarius is dead. I am finally free.” But that wasn’t true, not like it should be, he needed her understand-- “But none of it feels as it should. This freedom tastes like ashes.”

She smiled, sharp and guarded. “I always thought it tasted like chicken.”

“Is everything always a joke to you?” He shouldn’t have told her any of this. He’d thought, since she’d come--but no, this was a mistake.

“What do you want me to say, Fenris? You walk out on me and never say a word about what happened, but for years you stare at me like some forlorn teenager when you think I’m not looking, make these cryptic comments about how hard it was to leave to everyone _but_ me, and wear that stupid old scrap of cloth under your armor, stroking it when you think no one will notice!” A flush had spread across her cheeks and she refused to look at him. “I waited for you. Three years I waited for you. And I come here tonight, thinking maybe after what you said today, you’d finally be willing to talk about it, but you just swear at me in Tevene and blame me for--because--because murder wasn’t enough to achieve self-actualization or some shite--who could have guessed!” Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and she blinked them away angrily.

She had waited for him. _She had waited for him_.

Fenris sat down across from her. “I’m not angry with you. I apologize for making it seem that way.”

She crossed her legs and looked pointedly away from him, still blinking rapidly.

“I was trying to explain and doing a poor job of it,” he added.

“Yes, I gathered that much.”

He took a deep breath. He needed to get this right, to get this one thing right. “I thought finding Varania would open up a new world, one that was lost forever. But it’s gone and I can’t get it back.”

Hawke met his eyes, and then he was the one who needed to look away.

“I thought that killing Danarius would...fulfill me somehow. That if I could truly be free, I would feel worthy.”

“Worthy of what, Fenris?”

Fenris shook his head, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I was a fool. After what happened, I thought it better if you hated me--I deserved no less.” He made himself meet her eyes. “But it isn’t better. That night...I remember your touch as if it were yesterday.” Standing up, he closed the distance between them.

Hawke remained seated, jaw clenched. He could see how hard she was trying to keep her emotions from showing on her face.

“I should have asked for your forgiveness long ago. I hope you can forgive me now.”

She looked away again and didn’t speak. Fenris could very nearly feel his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest and thought it a small wonder she couldn’t hear it. Maybe she would be the one to walk out on him this time. As much as he deserved it, he didn’t think that was something he could endure. Finally, in a voice small and vulnerable, “I need to understand why you left, Fenris.”

She wasn’t leaving, not yet. “I’ve thought about the answer a thousand times. The pain, the memories it brought up...it was too much.” He felt shame warm his face thinking of it, even now. “I was a coward.”

“You’re not a coward, Fenris,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “If I could go back, I would stay. Tell you how I felt.”

“What would you have said?”

He hadn’t had the words three years ago, and, truth be told, he didn’t have them now either, not quite. To express what he felt for her, why he stayed with her, why he would follow her anywhere, through anything--he didn’t know if it would ever be possible. But he owed it to her (the very least of what he owed to her) to try. “Nothing could be worse than the thought of living without you.”

Something in her expression broke. Her lips parted slightly in surprise, and she didn’t bother to blink away the tears anymore. She wiped them away, laughing at herself. “You know, you needn’t have kept me in such suspense.”

He leaned over so their eyes met. He needed her to know he wasn’t the man he was three years ago. “If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side.”

She stood up, and his lips were on hers, and he was in her arms, and he breathed in the scent of leather and rosemary and nothing else, nothing but her.

* * *

 Fenris sat in front of the fireplace in the bedroom of his mansion. He had the strange sensation that he was just visiting, like he no longer lived there. It was partially true. For the last month or so he’d spent nearly every night in Hawke’s manor, falling asleep in her arms and waking up to see her smiling, as though it brought her happiness just to find him there.

He’d thought about letting go of Danarius’ old mansion, letting Varric sell it or condemn it or whatever he’d been pestering Fenris to do with the blasted thing. But even if he rarely set foot in it anymore, Fenris liked knowing it was there. He liked that having it made staying with Hawke a choice and not a necessity.

It was nice to come here sometimes, too, to be in a place that didn’t belong to her. More and more it felt like the city was split between Hawke and Meredith, with Meredith clamoring for control and Hawke trying to keep the people of Kirkwall from getting hurt. Neither of them were doing a particularly good job. Some days it seemed like it didn’t matter what they did, what any of them did, that the very city was determined to tear itself apart. But this mansion, gloomy and dusty as it was, was his, some small part of the city he could claim as his own--if only because no one else wanted it.

He had felt the pull of blood magic creeping through his veins today, for the first time since he had left Tevinter. Seizing his will and turning him into a puppet.

Kirkwall had no shortage of blood mages, of course, but they wielded the power clumsily and violently, like a desperate child brandishing a knife. They weaponized blood already spilled, and even when they grasped at control of blood still flowing through another’s veins it didn’t have much hold. Fenris had been wounded in battle by Kirkwall’s blood mages, sometimes they had even managed to slow his steps or take the force out of a swing of his sword, but they had never invaded his mind.

Blood mages in Tevinter were different. There, blood magic wasn’t a tool of desperation, it was a skill they honed, practiced. They could use blood magic to whisper thoughts into a person’s mind, like a half-remembered song. They could make a person do anything they wished, and unless that person was a mage, there was no way to resist. Danarius had been no different.

When he’d finally faced Danarius, he had been terrified that he would feel that pull, that binding again. But Hawke had been at his side and the others at his back, and even Danarius couldn’t control that many people at once. Fenris had ended it, cleaving his former master’s head clean off its body. It had been foolish to think that Danarius’ death would mean Fenris would no longer have to fear his own blood being used against him.

Fenris stared into the flames, counting as he breathed. Breathe in for four seconds, then out for four seconds. Trick the body into thinking it’s calm, and the mind will follow. He had the vague sense of being taught the technique at some point, but couldn’t remember when or where. Perhaps before the markings, or perhaps in Seheron with other memories he’d tried to repress. Fenris hadn’t needed to use that trick in many years.

He had been on his way to the Hanged Man when he’d been attacked. They’d come at him from an alleyway, with fire spells and ropes. At first, he hadn’t thought much of it, just some new gang come to take the place of the one he and Hawke and the others had cleared out of some warehouse or other last week. He took down four of them before he’d felt it in the back of his mind. That whispering, like the pull of chains.

He’d seen who was casting for a moment before he blacked out. Someone Hawke had helped years ago, who had been with a blood mage while fleeing Kirkwall, but had been recaptured by the templars. Grace, that was her name. Grace.

She’d been practicing.

He hadn’t _wanted_ to flee or fight. He had wanted to kneel and let himself be bound.

Breathe.

He startled at the sound of footsteps, and his markings immediately flared, hands reaching for his sword.

“It’s just me.”

He relaxed when he saw Hawke, falling back into his chair.

“I would have checked in sooner, but Meredith wanted to take the better part of two hours to impress upon me the extent of my foolishness and naïveté.” She stood next to the fire, near enough that her hair rose with the heat and embers floated dangerously close to her skin. Fenris could hear the anger leashed in her voice, nothing compared to the fury she’d turned on Cullen and Samson after he woke. She softened when she looked at him. “How are you doing? I can go if you need to be alone.”

“No, stay.”

They remained there, silent, for a long time, Fenris counting his breaths and Hawke standing too close to the fire.

Eventually, Fenris reached out to her, catching her fingers and pulling her gently towards him and onto his lap. She curled into him, burying her face in his neck. He held her to him like a lifeline.

“I thought you’d be angry with me.”

“In this situation, I think it more appropriate to be angry with the blood mage,” he said drily.

“A blood mage that I saved.”

“Varric tells me I was also spared by a blood mage you saved.”

“Who wouldn’t have had to save you if it wasn’t for me.” She paused to laugh at herself. “I’m fairly certain we’ve had this argument before in reverse.”

“It’s likely,” he said, stroking her hair. “We argue often.”

She laughed again, though Fenris detected no humor in it. “You can be angry with me, you know. Meredith’s right--I have been a fool.”

“I do not blame you, Hawke. And you are no fool.”

She pulled back slightly to look at him, her face pulled into an expression of such skepticism that he had to smile. “If you tell me next you’ve decided to support the mages’ right to self-determinate, then that blood magic did far more damage than I thought.”

“Not quite.” He pushed a few strands of hair out of her face so he could better see her eyes. “You are idealistic, reckless, and stubborn. Not to mention far too forgiving and generous to people who don’t deserve it. But you are not a fool, and you are not naive.”

“Mm.” She looked down, to the sash tied around his wrist. He no longer hid it beneath armor. Taking his hand in both of hers, she ran her fingers over his palm again and again without saying a word.

He could tell she didn’t believe him.

“Of course, I used to think you were a moron.”

Her head snapped up, staring at him incredulously.

“When we met, I thought you were willfully ignorant of the way the world worked,” he continued, enjoying the way her eyebrows pulled together. “I thought Kirkwall would break that idealism before long.” He fought the urge to look away from her. “I thought you were foolish. I thought you were naïve.”

She didn’t look hurt, just confused, and something about that made him want to gather her into his arms and hold her tightly, never letting go. “What changed your mind?”

“You.”

She raised an eyebrow at that.

With one hand he rubbed small circles into her back, trying to think of how to explain it. Why was it that words always seemed to escape him when it came to her? “After everything...you never broke. You never turned selfish, you never let any of what happened to you stop you. You never ran away.”

Leaning forward, she kissed him gently on the forehead, and he leaned into the touch, clinging to her.

His breathing was growing ragged again, but he wanted to say this. “I always respect you, Hawke, even when I don’t agree with you. I haven’t always been able to say that, but I can say it now with certainty.”

Fingers carding through his hair, she whispered, “It’s okay, Fenris.”

“Do you remember the promise I made you?”

He felt the slight tremor in her hand before she resumed running it through his hair. “Yes.”

“I have kept it, and I will continue to keep it.” Breathe in for four seconds. “Will you promise me something, Hawke?”

“Of course,” she said immediately.

Breathe out for four seconds. “Don’t promise me before you know what I’m asking of you.”

Laughing to hear her own words turned on her, she waited for him to speak.

“Promise me you won’t leave me behind because you think I won’t want to follow. Promise me you’ll let me decide that for myself.”

She quirked a smile, and in that expression he could see now easily what he hadn’t when he’d first known her--how, too often, that knife turned inward. “Even when there are blood mages involved?” Even now, her instinct was to offer him an out.

He groaned. “Especially when there are blood mages involved, Hawke.” Pressing his forehead to hers, he said with as much conviction as he could muster, “I cannot bear the thought of living without you.” Then, softer, “Promise me, Hawke.”

“I promise,” she whispered.

He gathered her into his arms, knowing at some point he would have to let go. But not yet. Not tonight.

* * *

Fenris picked his way through the tiny village’s main street, the hood of his cloak pulled low over his face as the wind and a stinging, almost-frozen rain pelted him. One hand held his cloak closed as best he could while the other clutched a letter, addressed in Varric’s neat, blocky handwriting.

The letters had come sporadically since leaving Kirkwall, sometimes entrusted to runners and sometimes left with a contact, waiting to be retrieved under a false name. Though Fenris’ reading was still slow and frustratingly laborious, he’d read this one over several times to make sure he understood.

The Chantry had finally officially declared their response to the destruction of Kirkwall’s Chantry. The College of Enchanters was to be dissolved. The Divine made no mention of an Exalted March on Kirkwall. The Chantry wasn’t pursuing Hawke.

He’d stood under the awning of the tiny trader’s depot where he got the letter for ages, scanning over the lines again and again to make sure he had it right. Hawke was free.

Fenris knew a better person than he would think of what this would mean for Kirkwall, be glad that its people wouldn’t endure any added suffering, be content to know that Varric and Aveline and Merrill could continue, in their own ways, to rebuild the city without any more outside interference. That was surely how Hawke would react.

Fenris wasn’t that noble. He was thinking how this meant that Hawke could go home, to her mother’s house and her dog, that a portion of the suffering Anders had caused her could be alleviated. Fenris still saw it, that guilt in her eyes, shadowing her every move. She still kept her short swords strapped to her back, but she no longer carried any daggers, on her belt or up her sleeve or anywhere else. She rarely smiled, and when she did they were fragile, hesitant things, like she was expecting the world to punish her for any scrap of happiness she managed to find. Fenris tried to give her every scrap he could.

So he pushed through the abominable weather, the same they’d been enduring for months as they traveled along the Storm Coast, to the tavern where Hawke was. Hopefully by now she’d secured a room, and he could show her the letter.

The tavern was warm and crowded with fishermen come in from the storm, and far cleaner than the Hanged Man. He spotted Hawke sitting on a bench pushed against one of the walls and slid his way through the crowd to sit beside her.

She smiled at him, small and careful. “I’ve got us a room, but we have to wait if we want any food.”

“There’s a letter from Varric. It has good news.”

“Better not take it out now, lest someone spill beer on it.” Before Fenris could tell her exactly how good this news was, that she should read Varric’s letter _that moment_ , she nudged him, nodding at a human man across the tavern. He was barely old enough to grow a patchy beard and was holding--

“Is that a guitar?” He hadn’t seen one since Bethany’s funeral.

“Yes, and this prick has been playing the same tune over and over again, quite poorly I might add. It’s driving me up the wall.”

Fenris shook his head slightly, pulling Varric’s letter from his cloak. “Hawke, you really need to read this.”

She didn’t look at him, still scowling at the man as he clumsily strummed the same two chords. “He’s just doing it because he thinks it will make women want to sleep with him. He doesn’t even know how to play it properly.”

“Hawke.”

“My father bought his from an Antivan merchant, did you know that? Because Bethany saw a traveler play one once and wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

Fenris clutched the letter but didn’t interrupt her. She barely spoke of her father and he hadn’t heard her say Bethany’s name since the Deep Roads.

“Mother was furious with him. He’d spent what seemed like a small fortune at the time for the instrument and for the Antivan to teach him how to play it. Had him write out charts and everything.” Still frowning across the room, she reached out and took his hand, gripping it tightly. He squeezed back. “Bethy was thrilled. She wasn’t allowed out into the town much when she was young, since she was still learning to control her magic, so she would spend all day playing the thing. She could barely get her arms around it at first. Practically forced Carver and me to strum for her so she could practice fingering the chords.” She looked at him then, and her expression didn’t hold as much grief as he expected it to. It was more earnest, like it was important for her to tell him this story. “Those songs we used to sing, she wrote those. Cooped up on our farm with no one but our parents and the chickens to keep her company, because Carver and I were always running off to cause trouble in town--and she used that time to make something so beautiful.”

Her grip on his hand was like a vice. He didn’t let go.

“I let her teach me after Father died.” She swallowed, then laughed. “She would have been so angry with me for burning it. Would have scolded me and shook her finger and sounded exactly like Mother.”

A loud _twang_ came from the man’s guitar as he botched whatever note he was trying to play. Fenris and Hawke both winced, and she was laughing.

“I’m sorry, you were trying to get me to read what I’m sure is a very important letter, and I start waxing poetic.”

“You never have to be sorry for talking about them, Hawke.” He passed her the letter, squeezing her hand once more before she let go.

She unfolded the letter, and her eyes scanned over it, far more quickly than Fenris had been able to manage. Her gaze reached the bottom, stopped for a moment, then returned to the top, reading through it again. “They’re letting me go?”

“We should remain cautious. Your location shouldn’t be well known.” From what Varric’s previous letters had said about Sister Nightingale's agents scouring the city, it sounded like she wasn’t one to give up easily. “But, yes. We can return to Kirkwall.” He added, gently, “But only if you wish it.”

She continued to stare at the letter as if she wasn’t quite sure it was real. One hand ran over the text, feeling the indents of Varric’s writing. “Do you want to? To return?”

“I told you, Hawke.” He’d told her the night they’d fled, after she’d signed all her assets over to Varric, made arrangements for Orana’s employment, entrusted Fang to Aveline, after they’d both said their goodbyes to their friends. She had told him he didn’t have to follow her. That she wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. That she didn’t want him to have to leave his home because of her. “My home is with you. Whether that’s in Kirkwall or not.”

Carefully, she folded the letter, something tentative in her eyes. “We could--”

She was interrupted by another _twang_ , this one louder and far too close. They looked up to find the human with the guitar had approached Hawke, a cocky grin on his pocked face. “I saw you staring at me, love.” He waggled his eyebrows and Fenris was torn between the urge to laugh and wanting to punch him in the face. “I take requests.”

Some of the patrons nearest them groaned, obviously used to, and fed up with, this man’s antics.

Hawke glanced at Fenris, then grinned, sharp and mischievous. “I do have a request, actually.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up and Fenris was certain he’d never actually gotten this far before. “Of course, love, anything you like.”

“Oh, it’s been such a long time since I heard it...how does it go…” She tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Might I see your instrument? I think I might be able to pluck out the tune.” She batted her eyelashes and Fenris had to suppress a snort. He’d only ever seen her do that was when she was pickpocketing someone.

A flush spread up the man’s neck, but he kept his leer in place. “O-of course. Be careful now, love, it’s a very delicate piece of craftsmanship.”

Several of the tavern’s patrons rolled their eyes.

“Of course,” Hawke crooned as she took the guitar from him, handing Varric’s letter to Fenris, who tucked it back into his cloak. She strummed one chord, then another, making a face. She turned a few small keys at the top of the instrument’s neck.

“H-hey! That’s--” The man started, reaching to take the guitar back, but Hawke batted his hand away.

“Shush. I’m making it not sound like a dying animal.” She met his eyes as her fingers settled across the strings once more. “Unless that’s what you were going for?”

Fenris didn’t hold back his laugh that time, and a few fishermen who were within earshot joined in.

The man, his whole face now red, started to protest, but Hawke cut him off by strumming the guitar again, the beginnings of a song this time.

At the sound of actual music instead of atonal twangs, several heads in the tavern turned. As a melody emerged, the noise in the place quieted. But her voice was what held everyone’s attention.

She played differently than she had when he had seen her in the Hanged Man, all those years ago. She didn’t feed off the energy of the crowd, but seemed oblivious to it, eyes fixed on the instrument's strings as her fingers slid over them.

Relief surged through him as she sang, as though he’d been holding his breath for months without realizing it. After everything, even after Anders, after what he’d done to her and what she’d had to do to him, she still wasn’t broken. He felt an irrational rush of pride as he listened to her play, the sound of her voice filling the room.

The song was short, and when she was done she handed the guitar back to the now mortified man, adding cheerfully “That’s how it’s supposed to sound.”

The man snatched back the instrument and shuffled off as some of the tavern’s patrons laughed before returned to their meals and drink.

She turned to him, her face a bit red. “Sorry. Got a bit carried away, I suppose.”

Fenris took her hands in his, feeling the angry red marks that had formed at her fingertips. Taken by an impulse, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the marks gently. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Gemma.”

She smiled at him, soft and glowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to finish! This is what I get for writing a fic where both main characters are really bad at Talking About Feelings™.
> 
> The title of this work is inspired by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz9cTIm6z4w) (specifically that acoustic english version). I listened to it waaay too many times while writing this.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's left Kudos and/or comments! I hope you like how the fic wrapped up.


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